Ryan chides Dems for omitting 'God'

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Paul Ryan on Thursday used the most recent dispute over the Democratic Party’s platform to paint a contrast between Republican and Democratic values.

Speaking at a rally here attended by some 3,000 supporters, the Republican vice presidential nominee slammed Democrats for initially failing to include the word “God” in their party platform at their convention this week.

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“The president’s going to be in Charlotte tonight with the Democratic convention. Their convention actually began with a tribute to big government. They actually said the government is the only thing that we all belong to,” Ryan said, causing the crowd to boo.

“Then they cut references to God out of their platform,” the Wisconsin lawmaker continued. “They reversed course on that one yesterday, it wasn’t really a popular reversal if you watched it on the TV, but to quote a prominent journalist from Wisconsin: They were against God before they were for Him.”

Ryan was quoting POLITICO Executive Editor Jim VandeHei, who appeared on MSNBC’s “Way Too Early” Thursday morning discussing the optics over whether the word “God” and a reference to Jerusalem being the capital of Israel should be included in the Democratic platform.

“You can’t make it up. It’s terrible optics for the party. And I think it’s one of the dangers for this convention for Democrats is that there’s a lot of rhetoric, a lot of speeches that I think a lot of people in the middle are not going to hear that [as] comforting,” VandeHei said. “Talking about God and having to restore God and Jerusalem to the platform was not the distraction that they were hoping for.”

Host Willie Geist chimed in, “Especially when they had God in, and then took it out, now they had to put it back in.”